St Katherine’s Savernake and its Billionaire Neighbours
- Paul Timlett
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
Every time I sit down to write one of these blogs I determine to be concise and not rant. Let’s see how that goes this time!
Once again I am indebted to Louise Powell of Circular Wiltshire Walks for this route. Usually I adapt her routes but on this occasion I have followed it turn by turn as it was exactly what I was looking for. I’ve been meaning to visit St Katherine’s church for a long time and when I was asked to photograph it as part of a bigger project, Louise’s route was the perfect way to combine this with a walk in Savernake Forest. Sections of the walk were very muddy so we chose to wear wellies on this winter’s day.
Taking Louise’s recommendation we parked in the large car park at the front of the church at W3W ///bypassed.luxury.fewest We were grateful to have had this reference otherwise we would not have followed the track to the car park far enough. Don’t be tempted to park in the lane itself as it’s narrow and parents park on the verge to drop/collect children at the little primary school next door. Instead keep following the track to the very end – at the sharp right hand turn there is a sign pointing the way for cars.
It was a dazzlingly bright day when we arrived at the church, which makes for challenging conditions for a photographer due to the extreme contrast between shadow and highlights. Normally I moan about grey rainy days so the weather gods can’t win. Not knowing how the light might change during the day we decided to visit and photograph the church first whilst we had the light.
St Katherine’s Church is one of the Savernake Team churches and is fondly known as the church in the woods as it is surrounded by trees. Despite its appearance this is a Victorian church built by that human dynamo of Victorian church construction T H Wyatt in 1861. St Katherine’s was built for the Second Marchioness of Ailesbury of Tottenham House which is conveniently located next door, for this is an archetypal estate church which explains its grandeur in this sparsely populated area.
The church was restored in 1952 after it was severely damaged in an explosion at the end of the Second World War. The explosion was caused when discarded ammunition was accidentally triggered. My regular walking buddy Stu and I were mystified by this – had there been an ammunition dump next to the church!? As we were to discover later in the day during a very pleasant conversation with Rosemary Davies, a member of the PCC, ammunition was scattered all over the Savernake Forest by the American forces who were stationed there. She suspected there is still some lying about!
Having taken a few photographs outside we entered the church. All was quiet and I busied myself with photographs of the interior. We then heard sporadic knocking and grunting sounds. We could see no one else in the church. Had it not been for the car parked outside we might have imagined all sorts of ghostly activity. We never did see who was making the noise or what they were doing.
Eventually we departed and headed south west along the initially muddy track through an avenue of trees carpeted with snow drops towards Tottenham Park, intending to use the public right of way which serves as the Pewsey Vale Circular Walk through the Tottenham House estate.
We wondered what we might find. The house has a new owner, a billionaire hedge fund manager who has already closed most of the estate to walkers. Many local people have told me how they used to be able to roam across the parkland but security guards now patrol the estate and signs warn of CCTV surveillance and even police drones (which I doubt), so we are now required to stick strictly to the one footpath almost entirely out sight of the house.
Tottenham House has a colourful history. The land on which it is built came into the hands of the Seymour family by marriage in the 15th century and it is thought that the house itself was built for Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and Jane Seymour’s nephew, around 1575. He proceeded to enclose the surrounding land and turn it into a deer park thereby excluding the public from it to this day.
The house was extended multiple times over the years and in the late 17th/early 18th century it passed by marriage into the hands of the Bruce family, Earls of Ailesbury when the process of extending the house continued. The Ailesbury family continued to live in the house for centuries, sharing it with the American forces in the Second World War which explains how ammunition came to be scattered across the estate! The house was later used by a preparatory school and by a charity which helped troubled unemployed young people to rebuild their lives. There were then plans to turn it into a golf resort. The Ailesbury family battled to hang on to the house wrestling with the finances required to maintain what was by now a huge mansion. But their battle was lost in 2014 when it was bought by a property developer. The estate was sold again in 2017 to the current owner, reputedly for £11.3m. Meanwhile the current head of the Ailesbury family, the Earl of Cardigan, continues as hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest in which the estate sits.
So what of the current house and owner? The house is undergoing a vast renovation which it’s reported will see its owner spending around £200m when you factor in the original purchase price and restoration costs. As we walked through the avenue of trees we came to a gate and site fencing beyond which was a road leading to what is now an enormous construction site. It was manned by a couple of security guards who gave us a cheery wave. As we crossed the road to continue along the footpath across the park, to our left we got a sense of the scale of this project. There are enormous cranes towering over the house and outbuildings, and an endless stream of lorries shuttled back and forth. The owner has stated that his aim is not just to restore what was apparently a hugely run down historic building, but to modernise it and make it fit for the next 300 years. I wonder whether the public will ever get to see it again, and to admire what he has achieved?
The right of way across the estate crosses the park diagonally to meet the road between Durley and The Warren by Durley Gate House. Crossing the estate we saw another security guard patrolling the fence line by the road. Here we crossed the road to the track on the opposite corner on which was the lovely red brick cottage with green timbers in the photo – much more to my taste with fewer windows to clean!
From here we followed the track into the forest, passing some lovely houses hidden away behind the trees. I’d read on the Historic England website about a small, isolated granary – a timber framed and weatherboarded structure on 5 staddle stones. It dates from the late 18th/early 19th century. I thought it would either be hidden in the forest or in a garden but here it was in the middle of a field next to the track.
As we walked on we saw a couple of walkers approaching from the opposite direction. We stopped to chat and they explained they were members of the University of the Third Age (U3A) and that they were doing a walk from the edge of the forest back to Hungerford from where they had caught the bus. It sounded like a long way to me but they said across country it was 13 miles. We chatted about the forest and Tottenham House and they explained how it used to be possible to walk along Column Ride from the famous monument in the forest all the way to Tottenham House, and how this was now closed to the public.
We spoke about the number of huge estates that had been bought up in the area and the vast sums of money being spent on them. Meanwhile we’re told the country has no money. The chap said he had a map on his wall showing the number of estates in Wiltshire owned by billionaires. There are more than you think! But we have to ask ourselves the question – if these immensely wealthy people didn’t buy and restore these houses what would become of them?
We soon came to a right turn on our route which is where Stu and I had walked on a previous Hidden Wiltshire walk (there’s a link to that blog below). This took us deep into the forest along Three Oak Hill Drive and before long to the Ailesbury Column where we had decided to stop for coffee.
I won’t describe the column again as I wrote about it in the earlier blog linked below. But it was interesting to compare the landscape to when we last visited in Spring 2025, the trees now stripped of their leaves. Close to the monument I found an interpretation board that I hadn’t spotted before which mentioned the Hereford cattle that graze on the rough pasture in the forest in spring and summer. There was also mention of the Purple Emperor butterflies that we were told later can be found high on the column in springtime licking the salt from the stone.
In the distance we could hear dogs barking. Initially we thought they belonged to dog walkers but then I spotted far along Column Ride back towards Tottenham House a flock of sheep being rounded up and driven towards a livestock wagon on the road we had crossed earlier. They were obviously being moved to fresh pastures.
We returned to Three Oak Hill Drive, the track we had been on before our coffee stop, and continued along it in a north easterly direction passing a pond as we went.
The sunlight was still with us and penetrated the forest canopy, casting a spotlight on individual trees which became highlighted against the deep shadows of the surrounding forest. There was a warm glow to the light which made the dead bracken turn a burnt orange colour. There were photographs everywhere.
Eventually, as we approached The Gallops forest road we saw a Forestry England van and its driver a few metres off the track amongst the trees. So we went over to find out what he was doing. This turned out to be the forest ranger, Mark Maynard, with whom we enjoyed a long and fascinating chat. Mark is now the sole ranger in the forest and it is one of I think he said 11 forests that he is responsible for from here to Bristol.
He was leading a group of volunteers (one of whom was Rosemary who I mentioned earlier) who were clearing a path to a pond about 25 metres further into the forest. He was preparing tea for them and soon they emerged for a break. We asked Mark about the ownership of the forest as I couldn’t remember this from when I last researched it for the blog I wrote last spring. Mark said it was complicated but confirmed that Forestry England has a long lease on the forest. It was a joy to hear how enthusiastic he was about his job and his love of the forest. It was he who told us about the Purple Emperor butterflies.
Rosemary soon joined us, her love of the forest every bit the equal of Mark’s. She has walked here for decades and her three children, now presumably grown up, had attended the little school next to St Katherine’s to which she used to drive them every day. She asked us if we knew about “the Local Man’s Map” of Savernake Forest. This was apparently drawn by a local resident who had once become totally lost in the forest trying to follow the Ordnance Survey map. So he decided to draw his own which is available in The White Horse bookshop in Marlborough. Here's a link to it if you want to order one online: https://www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk/peter-nobles-savernake-forest-map
Reluctantly we took our leave of Mark and his volunteers, but not before he had tried to recruit Stu and I to his band of volunteers. We continued on our way soon crossing Grand Avenue (not The Gallops as I typed in my first version - thanks to an eagle eyed reader for the correction), a metalled road along which a few cars were parked, and on into the forest. Our next landmark was a bank and ditch marked on the OS map along the line of a Roman road. We assumed it was the agger for the road. As we came to the spot where the Roman road crosses the track we stared intently into the trees on either side – did the ground rise slightly here, the agger which the road would have run, or were we imagining it?
The track then swung left before bending right towards Birch Copse. There were a couple of track junctions along this stretch but if you follow the map below you can’t go wrong. At Birch Copse we took a track to the right towards the edge of the forest. We followed the forest edge with a wire fence to our right towards Holt Pound and onwards back to St. Katherine’s about a kilometre away. Louise told me that when she walked this stretch along the forest edge in the spring it was quite overgrown and the path was difficult to follow. When we walked it in February, apart from a stretch of a few metres, the path through the trees and scrub was evident. But I think if the route is not clear if you keep the fence close by on your right (beyond which is open fields) then you can’t go wrong.
Exiting the forest just before Holt Pound by what looked like a little brazier there is a broken metal gate secured shut with a bit of bent wire. As far as we could see this was the only way out through the fence.
Crossing the farm track that twisted its way up to the farm buildings and houses at The Warren to our right, we crossed the field ahead of us (Holt Pound) with an avenue of trees to our left and a fence to the right, passing a large concrete water trough as we went. We were aiming for the stile beyond the avenue of tress and on up to the road where we crossed another stile. This was the boggiest part of the walk.
Once over the second stile, by the road, we turned right where we had to walk along the road towards The Warren for about 100 metres before reaching a bridleway on the other side. The road is not too busy but the drivers race through here, none of them slowing as they passed two walkers. We were glad to reach the bridleway. We followed this through the belt of trees before coming to open meadow which we crossed to a fence line and which we followed until we reached an open gate into the car park opposite St Katherine’s school. Then it was a simple matter of walking up the increasingly muddy road to the back gate into the churchyard. Fortunately for us we got there just before the children came out of the school at the end of the day. I really didn’t want to be that old bloke standing outside a primary school with a camera!
By now the sun had travelled its path across the sky and was illuminating the church from a different side. So whilst Stu returned to the car I took some more photographs. The light inside the church from the sinking sun was now softer and warmer than the morning light all those hours earlier, and was illuminating the nave from the opposite end. So I’d had the best of both worlds for my photographs.
So how did I do? Is this blog more concise? Did I rant? (Perhaps a wee bit.) In all this walk was 7.7 kms (4.8 miles). It was easy going, being almost flat the whole way. In places it was muddy and boggy so wellies proved to be a good choice in the winter.
Link to the route in OS Maps:
What a lovely report and photos, thank you.
Lovely write up! Even though I’ve walked around here for years….( I once got lost in there with an aunt in the early 70’s…..but she did her best to pacify my worried mum that she knew her way!!!) it will be nice to have a specific route to follow……I’m almost tempted to try it today 😜
Superb photography as ever; thank you Paul!
Perfect piece! I love being taken on these walks by yourselves.
I drive and deliver for a well known grocery logistics company with purple vans beginning with O, (and yellow and green ones beginning with M) and our delivery area from near Uffington is 5 counties wide. After doing this for many years I have clocked up many potential places to go back and poke about - occasionally I do manage a bit of a look if I can factor a break in when I see some place of interest - doesn't happen often as our schedules are tighter than any other company. I hope you do find our drivers to be courteous and considerate. As we are tracked and…